


one precious moment

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Between Episodes, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: “Nice digs,” she says in a flat tone that makes it clear she doesn’t mean it. “Did you pay an interior decorator to vomit up a Contemporary Man catalogue in here?”“That’s not a real magazine.”“I can see why you wouldn’t want to come back here after…”Set in the confusingly amorphous time between Josh's Ex-Girlfriend is Crazy and I Never Want to See Josh Again.





	one precious moment

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling blocked trying to write fake dating, so this is an exercise in writing something, anything.

“I thought rich people were supposed to be all stuffy and rigid with their manners, or whatever.”

Nathaniel blinks at Heather, whose inexplicable arrival on his doorstep early in the morning while he’s getting ready for work has rendered him speechless.

“Hello?” she asks, waving her hand in his face.

“H-how do you even know where I live?” he asks finally.

“I have access to Google,” she says, eyeing him like he’s just asked her to run away with him and join a circus. “So can I come in or what?”

“Why?” is all Nathaniel can think to ask.

“Because your rich-person manners won’t allow you to leave me stranded out here.”

He scrunches his nose at her but still steps out of the doorway.

“Stranded,” he scoffs under his breath.

“Nice digs,” she says in a flat tone that makes it clear she doesn’t mean it. “Did you pay an interior decorator to vomit up a Contemporary Man catalogue in here?”

“That’s not a real magazine,” Nathaniel says, shoving his hands deep in his pockets after easing the door shut.

“I can see why,” she says, completely ignoring his comment, “you wouldn’t want to come back here after…”

Their eyes find each other and then, just as quickly, dart away.

He shifts his weight and rolls his shoulders, trying to shake off the thick tension of the atmosphere between them. “Why are _you_ here?”

Heather drops onto the couch, leaning over the arm to squint at the spines on his bookshelf.

“It’s too quiet at my place,” she says, almost meek. Then, after a beat, adds, “You left without saying goodbye.”

“I was under the impression I’d overstayed my welcome,” he says, watching as she slides a Ruth Bader Ginsburg biography out from between an old case law textbook and his copy of _Crime and Punishment_.

“Oh, you definitely did.”

He makes a ‘well there you go, then’ gesture.

“Rebecca’s loud,” Heather says in response, absentmindedly flipping through the pages.

Not understanding the shift in conversation and, frankly, a little winded by the sound of Rebecca’s name, Nathaniel presses his lips together and curls his hands into tight fists in his pockets. “Okay.”

“She’s inconsiderate,” Heather continues, “and unhygienic and just, like, constantly in your face.”

“I’m not sure I—” he starts, feeling an agitated flush working its way up his neck.

Heather cuts him off. “But it’s impossible to feel lonely when she’s around.”

She lifts her face and looks directly at Nathaniel, who feels pinned in his place by the plain trepidation in her expression.

He swallows thickly. “It is.”

Heather seems to take comfort in his agreement, her eyes softening a bit, and stands, book in hand.

“You’re an even worse roommate than her, you know that?”

His head jerks back. “There’s no way that’s true.”

She _hmm_ s, regretful. “You didn’t pull your weight at all.”

“I was barely there for two days.”

“And you didn’t wash a single dish,” Heather says, shaking her head.

“I also didn’t use a single dish.”

“That’s true,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’d ask what that’s about, but I can only handle the baggage of one human disaster at a time, honestly.”

He juts his chin out in indignation and crosses his arms over his chest. “Maybe I’m perfectly content handling my baggage on my own.”

She frowns. “Hmm, no. You’re definitely one Precious Moment away from spilling your guts out to someone. Like a tall, sad dam about to break.”

Nathaniel rolls his eyes at the simile. “You’re welcome to leave before it ends up being you.”

“There’re those manners,” she says with a playfully tight smile.

He mimes tipping a hat to her as she goes to leave.

She pauses in the doorway, though.

He raises his eyebrows at her.

“I know you have the alligator.”

He feels his cheeks pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Weren’t you leaving?”

She holds up the biography that’s still in her hand. “I’m keeping this until you give it back. Bader for Gator.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he says evasively.

She sticks her tongue out at him and then disappears as suddenly as she’d shown up.

Once the door shuts behind her, an insistent pressure builds around Nathaniel’s eyes. He squeezes them shut, feeling all too much like a dam about to burst.

Eventually the sensation subsides, though he can feel it there in his sinuses, waiting to wage another attack.

With a mounting sense of dread, he finishes getting ready for work.


End file.
